Incident At Loch Ness (2004)

Incident At Loch Ness ~ John Bailey, Kitana Baker, Elisabeth Beristain, and Gabriel Beristain

Genres: Comedy, Drama
Released: September 17, 2004
Director: Zak Penn
Distributor: Eden Rock Media
Starring: Werner Herzog, Kitana Baker, Gabriel Beristain ...more

German film director Werner Herzog sets out to the Scottish Highlands to make a documentary, exploring the myth of the Loch Ness Monster. At the same time another documentary film crew is making a film about Werner Herzog, and we see the production of Herzog´s film from their point of view. Shooting on a rented boat, tensions begin to rise as Herzog and his producer Zak Penn find themselves at cross-purposes on the black surface of Loch Ness, as the producer hires a female "sonar operator" in a stars-and-stripes bikini or wants Herzog to film a miniature fake monster. Things get very edgy when the film crew starts seeing mysterious shapes in the murky water that seem to move towards the boat in a hostile manner. Could this become Werner Herzog´s last film? Or can he save the day?


Synopsis

A handful of filmmakers looking for the fabled sea serpent of Loch Ness get a look at another sort of monster in this witty mock documentary. Under commission from producer and screenwriter Zak Penn, notoriously eccentric German filmmaker Werner Herzog travels to Scotland to shoot his latest film, a documentary called "The Enigma of Loch Ness" which examines the myth of the Loch Ness monster and its role in the collective unconsciousness of the Scottish people rather than attempting to capture and photograph the creature itself. As Herzog is shooting his film, another filmmaker, John Bailey, tags along to shoot a film about Herzog shooting a film using the provisional title "Herzog in Wonderland." While Herzog and Bailey ruffle one another's feathers, Herzog begins to suspect Penn hired his crew more for their ability to generate "real life drama" on camera rather than their skills, especially Kitana Baker, a supposed "sonar engineer" who happens to have been a model for Playboy. As the production falls into chaos, neither Herzog or Bailey are able to complete their projects, and a pair of editors are brought in to combine footage shot by both crews into a coherent whole. Incident at Loch Ness received its North American premier at the 2004 Seattle Film Festival.